Learning to Trust the Training Process:I feel like I’m training for a half marathon for the first time. I know it’s my third season of training for them, and my next in October (a practice half for the race I’m targeting in November) will be my 6th half marathon. But I’ve never trained like this before.

My first season: I added diligently to my long runs until I could go further each week, targeting race survival. I wanted to run 13.1 miles without stopping, and it was all I could do to run a few times a week and keep adding distance to that weekend run.

My second season: I tried the Run Less, Run Faster workouts to do three quality running workouts a week, and added in some cross training for good measure, doing spin class about three times a month. I found most of the workouts too challenging in intensity, and ended up just sticking to the “three times a week” part of the plan rather than the “high intensity” part of the plan.  Still, I was doing some track repeats, and I had added in spin class. My training was evolving. I was growing.

My third season: I hired Jake to be my running coach. I’m doing strength training. I’m doing some recovery cycling once a week. I’ve added hill sprints, he’s analyzing my running form, and I’m running 5 days a week. This is a huge change. I’m slower than I was last summer, not because I haven’t improved, but because I’m suddenly running 5 days a week and strength training and cycling, and while Jake is varying the intensity so I can “recover” I’m not running on rested legs.  Last summer, I was targeting three runs a week. Let’s be honest, that meant some weeks I was running twice a week because I’d miss a run. I never ran back to back days, so if I missed a run, I didn’t move it to the next day because that would impact my scheduled long run, which I never ran after another running day. So there were weeks I was only running twice. Guess how rested I felt running? Pretty rested. But I wasn’t working consistently enough to improve the way I’m going to improve this season.

Training is demoralizing: I’ve had to get slower to get faster. I ran my 5th half marathon last November at 10:01 pace.  That’s 13.1 miles at about a 10 minute pace, and I recently blogged about how difficult I’m finding it to run 7 miles at that targeted pace. In an e-mail from Jake, he reminded me that I need to trust the process. It’s going to feel hard, and I’m going to run slower, while I’m training. The muscle building process is hard, but I need to remember that I won’t feel like this when I run the race after tapering.

Journaling: I’ve started to journal my training. I’m inputting Jake’s schedule for me into excel, and am tracking how much of the targeted goal I met, and how I felt. It’s going to be great to look back at. Keep in mind if you’re looking at it that this schedule is targeted specifically for me based on my running history, weaknesses, and goals – so if you’re interested in Jake’s training plans, I’d recommend not looking at what I’m doing specifically, but checking out his free downloadable plans (scroll down and his downloadable plans are on the left under Full and Half Marathon Training Plans).

This Could be Epic: There’s a huge difference in the way I’m training this year vs. previous years. Not just in sheer amount of time, but in effort and willingness to push through discomfort a little to make progress. I wouldn’t be brave enough to do this (I’m very, very injury averse) if I didn’t have a coach guiding me and telling me it’s ok to run tired and sore. Again, seek your own professional for running advice! It’s been weeks and I am injury free, and hopefully getting stronger. What will this fall bring, if I keep putting in the effort?

I’m excited to find out 🙂

What my Training Journal Looks Like – do you keep one?